


That Summer's Day, So Sweet and Fair!

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Backstory, Canon Era, Class Issues, Enjolras's dad isn't like the other dads he's a cool dad, Gen, Horseback Riding, Illustrated, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The people of Tarascon agreed that the son of the Marquis must have some of the madness of a saint, always restive and troubled. On all but the most miserable of days, he could be seen on horseback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Summer's Day, So Sweet and Fair!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nisiedraws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisiedraws/gifts).



The first thing the steward told Raimon was that he was lucky to work for the Marquis de Séguiran, because he was fair and paid his servants well. The second was not to gossip, right before he started on how the Marquis’s first wife had killed herself. The rest of the steward’s history of the family was tiresome, Raimon’s interest only picking back up when the steward began warning him against getting up to any mischief with the maids.

That wasn’t going to be a problem Raimon would ever have, since he’d been assigned to mucking out the stables whenever the gardener didn’t want him. He liked the horses well enough, after they stopped frightening him, but the smell of the stable got into his clothes. It didn’t help that all the girls had eyes only for the Marquis’s son. He was sixteen, the same age as Raimon, with the complexion of a porcelain doll. The young master was also, as the maids liked to whisper, probably as mad as his mother.

Raimon was almost finished with the last stall when he heard light hooves on the cobblestones. The young master was leading Bucephalus, a little Arabian who liked to headbutt people. Bucephalus’s neck was lathery and he was breathing loudly, but still holding his head high; even the young master had a bit of a sweat on him, his expression happier than Raimon had ever seen it before. The boy usually seemed to be sulking, whenever he was even in the house. He spent most his time outside, which never bothered Raimon – it was one less lord to worry about displeasing. Raimon tried to duck out before he was noticed. 

“Hello, you’re new,” the young master said. “What’s your name?”

Damn. “Raimon, my lord.”

The young master made another one of his sour faces at that. “I would prefer you called me Enjolras. It is my mother’s surname, and I am not yet a marquis, nor do I hope I will ever inherit such a thing. Come help me with my horse.”

Raimon set his shovel against the stall and rushed over, not daring to tell the Marquis’s son, who was odd as the gossip had suggested, that he had no idea how to take off a horse’s tack and his entire knowledge of the beast was based on how to avoid bites and remove its shit. Thankfully, Enjolras unsaddled Bucephalus and was quick with the rest of the tack, leaving Raimon with nothing better to do than pet the horse’s nose.

“He came from a sheikh’s stable, you know,” Enjolras said, tossing Raimon a curry comb while he towelled the horse down.

Raimon didn’t have any idea what a ‘sheikh’ was, so he nodded and set himself to loosening the dirt from Bucephalus’s coat. The horse stood better for grooming with Enjolras there; Bucephalus was normally restive and liked to lean on the other stableboys. Enjolras took off his riding gloves and started currying the other side of the horse, trailing his bare hand along Bucephalus’s side with obvious affection.

“Do you ride?” Enjolras asked.

“No,” Raimon said. “I don’t know how, and I’ve never had a need.”

Enjolras looked at him as if Raimon had said something shocking. “But it feels so free.”

He couldn’t imagine there was much freedom in it for Bucephalus, who would gallop like a black streak through the paddock when he was let out on his own.

“I’m sorry,” Raimon said, and hoped that would be the end of it.

“You must learn. You can’t work in the stables and not know how to ride a horse. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Enjolras smiled brightly and suddenly took hold of Raimon’s free hand. Raimon stopped himself from pulling back, praying the Marquis’s son was merely being strange and not unnatural.

“I’ll teach you,” Enjolras said. “It could help you so much.”

Raimon’s stomach lurched when he heard a low cough and the unmistakable voice of the Marquis saying, “Michel.” He snatched back his hand and dropped the curry comb in his panic, which drew further attention to whatever Enjolras was doing with him as it fell clattering to the floor. Raimon stood up straight and clasped his hands behind his back, staring at something between Enjolras and the Marquis.

“Michel,” the Marquis continued – as if Raimon wasn’t even there, thank God. “I’ve arranged for a new tutor. Try not to make this one quit, will you? He’s younger, and I checked his politics beforehand. You may even like him.”

Enjolras’s expression turned cold; it was more familiar, and easier, for Raimon than his smile. It was proper for the son of a lord.

“I have no need of a tutor. You should let me go to Paris,” Enjolras said.

“Let me have you for a little longer before you set yourself to changing the world. You haven’t even decided upon a course of study.”

“Education is a universal right.”

The Marquis sighed loudly. “Argue with me over dinner.”

“Yes, Father.”

Enjolras turned to Bucephalus and patted his neck, tangling his fingers for a moment in the horse’s mane.

“You’ll have to finish grooming him,” Enjolras said. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then thought better of it. Enjolras joined his father, who put an arm around his shoulder and spoke to him very gently. Raimon didn’t relax again until the two of them had gone, when he finally allowed himself to slump in relief. God spare him from the attentions of the upper class.

**Author's Note:**

> Illustrated [here](http://nisiedrawsstuff.tumblr.com/post/56106730810/do-you-ever-dream-about-enjolras-as-a-boy-riding) with great skill and panache by my partner in pony-related backstories, [Nisie](http://nisiedrawsstuff.tumblr.com).
> 
> Only brief notes for this one!
> 
> 1\. Bucephalus was the name of Alexander the Great's horse. 
> 
> 2\. The Marquisate de Séguiran is real (albeit no longer extant), one of many created in the 17th century as part of the growing class of the _noblesse de robe_. Imagine Enjolras's family as being some long-extinct cadet branch. 
> 
> 3\. The title comes from Baudelaire's "A Carcass."


End file.
